Google recently upgraded Google Maps with a new land parcel data layer, added a Map error reporting function, has promised map fixes to street errors in 30 days or less and has replaced Tele Atlas as their provider of roadway data. It was widely expected that Google might replace TeleAtlas but I don’ think anyone […]
Although Google Maps is now going on 5 years old, it is still in its infancy. It has become a powerful tool for local marketing yet Google’s policy of “launch early and iterate” has created a tool that has been open to an ongoing number of abuses. Recently Google announced that they had closed a […]
I recently had the opportunity to interview two senior level executives from Mapquest to find out what the longtime provider of online mapping services is up to. Despite perceptions, MapQuest is actually a more popular mapping destination than Google or Yahoo’s map sites, and the company continues to innovate and push out new features and […]
What do the Google searches; Orlando Hotels, Miami Discount Car Rental & Dallas Discount Car Rental have in common? The obvious answer is that they are all local searches on popular phrases in major metro areas. A less obvious answer is that like the infamous Denver Florist search last December, they all return seemingly authoritative […]
Imagine going to the Post Office to check your post office box to discover that all of your mail and receipts for the past few weeks had been forwarded to an unknown party. The Post Office informed you that there was no chance of getting your receipts back and if you wanted to start receiving […]
Google Maps recently introduced a new user interface for the Local Business Center. There were some issues with the upgrade and Carter Maslan, Google’s Director of Product Management for Local, agreed to answer some of my questions about the process in a phone conversation. Below, selected excerpts from our conversation:
Google’s enhanced listings for local search results are called the “PlusBox” because clicking the plus sign opens an inline box with additional information about a business. Over the past several weeks I’ve written about the problem of erroneous address information appearing in the Google PlusBox (here and here), and recently Bill Slawski covered the issue […]
I’ve been writing about Mapspam appearing in both Google and Yahoo search results for some time now. Mapspam is where black hat SEOs spam local search and map listings, and like all black hat techniques, it seems to get more sophisticated as the search engines find ways to combat the spammers’ techniques. There’s a new […]
Over the past several weeks I have explored some of the issues involved with categorization of businesses in Google Maps on my blog, Understanding Google Maps. In Part 1, I detailed the more than year-long history of small business frustration. In Part 2, I provided some background on the early research and the difficulty with […]
What does mobile computing, that online all the time phenom of the future, look like, and how soon will we have ubiquitous mobile search? Apple Chairman Steve Jobs offered some serious clues in his keynote address here in San Francisco at MacWorld this morning.
The fix is in, the votes have been counted, and the winners determined in the 2007 Rubber Chicken Award for Humor (aka the Columbo) in the search industry. And the winners are:
I’m now taking nominations for the 2007 top 10 list of the funniest/most irreverent blog entries in search. Why? The search industry is important. I mean, what industry (besides the sex industry) can singlehandedly cause Google to change its vaunted PageRank algo? However, on occasion we tend to take ourselves too seriously. I have always […]
After the first relatively unsophisticated Google MapSpam bulk upload attempt became public, I had a long and interesting conversation with a webmaster who had spent many years implementing a “long tail search” campaign on behalf of local business in a major market. He pointed out that with a little bit of work, a national company […]
Last week’s coverage of Google’s Goog-411 billboard in Olean brought forth a number of other sightings of the billboards in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, Ca. & Tonawanda , Buffalo and Limestone (even smaller than Olean) NY. While there may be others yet to appear and more billboards coming from Google, the very specific […]
After exploring Yahoo’s Mapspam, I started investigating Yahoo’s end user local reporting features more fully. I may have underestimated Yahoo’s features to deal with spam (and to abet it). The new Yahoo Local is making a strong attempt at encouraging user input and content about local businesses with reviews, soliciting and actually reading end user […]
The first widely reported Google Mapspam (and see here) clearly highlighted the potential and pitfalls for local search. Mapspam is a relatively new phenomemon, where black hat SEOs are spamming local search and map listings. It also raised a number of questions for Google, and for the search marketing industry:
The recent acquisition of TellMe by Microsoft, piqued my interest in the free voice driven directory assistance service, 520-Find and the possible role that Google plays in the service. Mobile directory assistance will have a huge role in both local search and local advertising going forward. Clearly, Google has an interest in this field, it […]